How to breed HEALTHY pond snails

[Duydawg]

For my dwarf puffers, I want to breed feeder snails.

I currently have a 1.5 gallon set up. so far I have turned one pond snail into atleast 20. However, I want more snails.


In addition to wanting more snails, I want healthy snails. How often should I clean the tank? As of now, i've been siphoning the gravel every other day and I've noticed a lot of poop.

I see that there are a lot more baby snails crawling around, so this means more poop. How should I deal with this? I read somewhere that I clean the tank less often, but all this snail poop i've vacuumed over the last 3 days is telling me thats a bad idea.

also do i need an air pump?
Im feeding them my leftover ADF frog pellets, which they seem to love.

 

[daveho]

the problem is u want a large population in a small aria. get a 10g and treat it the same way u would any other fish tank but dont use a substrate so when u do siphon u will lose les babies. i have a similar set up for my puffers

 

[Duydawg]

I just dont have the room to keep a subtle 10g snail breeder tank. I could potentially do five gallon, but I would rather find ways to work with my current 1.5g tank.

maybe i'll just throw them into my 10 gallon cycled puffer fish tank, with no puffer fish, and let them breed like crazy.

then eventually add my puffer. i'll maybe provide a lot of hiding spots for them, or anubias, wisteria, or java moss to hide in

 

[daveho]

well u asked how to breed healthy snails and a suitibly sized tank is the way to do it. you have to treat them as if your keeping them as pets rather then a food source, once you start cutting corners (like keeping them in polluted water) the over all quality of the snails will suffer. i say polluted water as the number of snails required to sustain a puffer population is quite large so that many in a 1.5 gallon isnt ideal